If I were a “good Christian” since it’s Sunday morning I’d be in church. However I’m not a “good Christian.” Or member of any other religion. I’m agnostic. I have a reverence for the Sun and the Moon and the universe that created the conditions on our planet that give rise to life and mother nature. So I guess if there’s anything I might subscribe to Wicca would be the closest. The point however is that I have the right to worship as I please. Or not. It’s guaranteed in the First Amendment of our Constitution which says quite clearly:
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof;
Seems pretty clear to me. If you are a person of faith in this country then you are free to practice it according to the second part of that initial clause. However, the FIRST part says Congress can’t go establishing a national religion, which over time case law has made clear that people can’t go forcing their particular religion on others. Well, that’s simply not how modern RWNJ types see thing. In their narrow minds they by GOD have a RIGHT to impose not just Christianity, but their nothing like Jesus actually taught version on each and every one of us according to Fox News host Rachel Campos-Duffy. Nope. According to “Compst-Dungheap” freedom from religion is not in the Constitution and that “Americans did NOT have Constitutional rights preventing religion from being imposed upon them. (emphasis added)
Got that? She basically told the group she spoke to that she (and they) have the RIGHT to impose their religious beliefs on me. And you and everyone. What’s next? Because I didn’t go to church (hers or one just like it of course!) and at least put on a good enough act of being her brand of “Christian” I get sent to Gitmo for “re-education?” Or executed even? Hey, these are fascists and their fervor is every bit as intense as the Taliban they love to hate.
Be aware and be (very) afraid. We have our very own Christian Taliban and they have one huge media platform to promote their religious bigotry. To teach all manner of things that CONTRADICT what the individual they claim as their inspiration, their “savior” actually preached. I became agnostic decades ago but was raised as a person of faith in a regular old, normal Presbyterian church. I attended over time (because I could sing) damned near every denomination at one time or another. (Never been inside a Jehova’s Witness place)
I don’t have a problem with Christians in general. Or Muslims. Or Jews or people who subscribe to any other religion. Well, Scientology but they aren’t and never were an actual religion. That they get away with calling themselves one which is somewhat ironic given their name. My point though is that I have had and still have plenty of people I respect, care about and even love who are strong in their faith. They respect that I am not a person of faith. That’s how it should be. That anyone is free to believe or not, and practice their beliefs so far as they don’t infringe on anyone else’s beliefs or well-being.
I am SO goddammed sick and tired of these Christo-Fascists and their bullshit. At times, including right now I wish I did believe in heaven and it’s counterpart hell. I’d would LOVE to hear the screams of people like Ms. Camps-Duffy as St. Peter crotch punts them from the Pearly Gates to their trip down to hell. The thought of their tortured screams for all eternity in hell brings me a savage delight.
So Ms. Campos-Duffy, if you get your way send your pals to come get me. I will fight them to the death, and one thing I can promise you is that despite being old and broken down this ole jarhead still has skills and doesn’t need a gun. I’ll be going to hell in a crowd. Because your pals will be headed their too because like you they actively reject the actual teachings of Jesus.
Just STFU and go away. F**k yourself. Sideways with the biggest goddman crucifix you can get your hands on. That goes for your pals too.
We live under the same Constitution and set of laws and however much the “Justice” and any of her like-minded cohorts on SCOTUS might wish to do so they know better than to completely toss aside the First Amendment. Weaken it? Sure. They’ve done so and will keep doing so but imposing your religion on everyone is much closer to the sun than they will fly.
Thanks, denis. I’m so tired of this Jeebus crap.
My approach is to just ask them: “Which Jeebus would that be, since there are 14 different churches in my small town with the same damn cross?” Yup, 14!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I live in a Texas community of 60,000, and there are over 100 “Christian” churches. It would be great fun getting them all together and arriving at which one would be “first among equals” in their theocracy. Oddly enough, there’s only one synagogue and one Buddhist temple.
After a near death experience, I’d advise them to actually believe there are ‘powers and principalities’, and a supernatural darkness they reside in. There will be many self proclaimed atheists and agnostics who will walk in the eternal light, and many who claim to know ‘God’ who will find their way to eternal darkness. It doesn’t matter what we say or claim to believe. All of our beliefs fall aside when eternity comes calling, and what’s truly in our heart is revealed.
I’ve been in multiple instances where I was sure I was about to be dead. I shit you not. Not all of them while in the Corps either. Most were when I was still a person of faith and not once when I thought in the next second or few seconds, or even (a time stuck in a bad spot high up on a rock face where I had plenty of time to think) did I think about god. Or for that matter experience a “whole life flashing before my eyes” type thing. One in particular when I was 18 stands out. Coming home one Oct. day from visiting my mom one who was in an out of town hospital receiving radtiation treatment for her lung cancer (she’d die that coming Christmas) I was in an auto accident. It was only via a set of combined miracle that I (nor anyone else) was killed or even seriously injured. The car (my sister’s) I was driving was crushed so badly when the truck fell over on it (still can’t remember how I got out through such a narrow opening – the door might as well have been welded shut) that the state cop who happened on the scene less than a minute later came close to arresting me, refusing to believe I’d been in that car and survived! Anyway, if you’ve ever experienced moments where time seems to slow down you might understand this. I’d experienced this “slowing down/slow motion” thing as an athlete. It’s often called “being in the zone” and when you’re there it does feel like you’re going along at a slower pace than everyone else which makes things easy. In this case, we slid along for four or five seconds but I swear if felt closer to thirty while it was happening. It took time for me to realize I was in an accident, and had not control over my car which was headed towards the corner of a van with a stop sign mounted in the “island” on a six-by-six wooden pole. I realized I was either dead, or would be when it was all over. It was actually quite peaceful and I just waited for the end, not even spending much thought on whether I’d feel any pain.
But nothing about heaven or hell or God. Despite being a person of reasonably strong faith at that point in life I not only didn’t pray once I realized events were out of my control, I accepted I was a dead (young) man and calmly sat through what I was sure were the final moments of my life.
Now, one might argue I didn’t really “die” and so didn’t get to experience what people in a medical environment who flatline yet are after some minutes revived report – the whole tunnel of light and seeing shadows or maybe even departed loved ones. But from where I sit I might as well have been in the same position as someone paramedics or doctors furiously work on to restart a heart.
My “eternity” as I see it will be the actions in my life that have affected others or things. I’ve unintentionally inflicted significant hurt on others, but I’ve also learned during the course of my life, sometimes to my great surprise I have instilled some positive things. Lessons and values that improves lives and which have been passed on to friends and children. I could write a lot more about all this but my point is we touch a lot of lives and things as we live and my hope is that when (hopefully long from now) my time is finally up on the balance I’ll have left a lot more good than bad, and know that some of the good did take root and has been passed along and will live on if not forever than for generations past my own.
That’s enough for me. And since life isn’t over just yet I still have hopes of doing more good even if some of it is fueled in part by my white-hot hatred of what conservatives have done and want to do to our country and the world. So I write. I make calls and send out postcards in GOTV efforts. I talk to people when I strike up conversations while out and about. If you get one to get active in the right way and for the right reasons, they may well pass that along to others and so on. “Eternity” comes in different forms.
My mother always said, it’s not how many times you go to church but ” what’s in your heart that counts”! I’ve always believed that.
Been there also marine. Einstein blew our ideas of time and space into smithereens. Space is curved into a space/time reality. I’m finishing a book by Karen Armstrong called The Case For God. In it she covers how the very idea of ‘God’ by various names has evolved since prehistoric times. We started out accepting the unknown through rituals but western culture has either rejected it through absolute certainty of the scientific method, or returned to fundamentalism, a system fueled by fear of uncertainty and trying to make the Bible literally true. All these so called religious people have made their own ideas of ‘God’ into their own idolatry. This quest has gone on since we came down out of the trees. One thing science has shown is the scale of the universe has been, and will always be beyond us. The three thumbs down shows how fragile these false beliefs truly are.
It seems to me that in most red states there are just as many bars in the towns as churches…wonder how they are related?
Nah, in our town churches outnumber bars by at least 5-1. Of course, the bars are open almost every day, and most of the churches only do anything thre or four times a week, so the total number of hours available for bar services is probably more than the total number of hours of church services …